Date: April 6, 2018
Source: Lund University
Researchers at Lund University in
Sweden have made a key discovery about the internal magnetic compass of birds.
Biologists have identified a single protein without which birds probably would
not be able to orient themselves using the Earth's magnetic field.
The receptors that sense the
Earth's magnetic field are probably located in the birds' eyes. Now,
researchers at Lund University have studied different proteins in the eyes of
zebra finches and discovered that one of them differs from the others: only the
Cry4 protein maintains a constant level throughout the day and in different
lighting conditions.
Cry4 belongs to a group of
proteins called cryptochromes. Normally they regulate the biological clock, but
have also been considered significant for the magnetic sense. With this study,
we now know which of the birds' cryptochromes do what.
"Cry4 is an ideal
magnetoreceptor as the level of the protein in the eyes is constant. This is
something we expect from a receptor that is used regardless of the time of
day," explains Atticus Pinzón-Rodríguez, one of the researchers behind the
study.
